Posts Tagged ‘fighting games’

1. Dreamcast fighting games – Gaming Insurrection examines the art of fighting games on Sega’s last scion, the Dreamcast. We discuss our favorite games and the peripherals we suggest to play them with in our quarterly features podcast.

2. Mortal Kombat II tournament – Our throwdown in the Midway fighting game classic continues with the second round of the winner’s bracket. Watch our tournament videos on YouTube and listen to our companion podcast!

5. The Strip – The Spirit is discussed in the comic property review and Lyndsey Mosley gives a rundown of what she needs for her comic book movies to succeed. The Top 5 list focuses on useless heroes and Brandon Beatty continues his look at Death Note with a review of Vol. 3 of the manga. Rogue is our Marvel character highlight for the quarter.

6. Retrogamecorner – Rumored Mortal Kombat HD remakes make the rounds, and we detail the moves of Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard in the Pokemon Red and Blue Knowledge Center. Also, Jamie Mosley introduces a new column, Torture of the Quarter, with Silver Surfer for the NES as the first victim.

This quarter is also the first of our online redesign. We hope that a sprucing up of the site’s overall design will improve readability and usability. Let us know what you think! Register to leave a comment, drop us an e-mail or find us on Twitter and YouTube.

02

04 2011

You know, it isn’t enough that arcades have fallen off the face of the earth. No, we’ve got to get personal by throwing in beautiful accessories that mimic that once-in-a-lifetime experience of going to the arcades in our homes.

You used to be able to head out to your local gathering hole of smoke-filled debauchery where young men and women used to grope machines until they had their fill. I often wondered what an arcade crime feature would play out like when I had downtime away from the games that soaked up my young imagination and spit out a seasoned gamer. Nowadays … there is no place to head out to, unless you count GameStop, and that doesn’t really count.

GameStop is a retailer, and an annoying one at that. Having spent time receiving household income from them makes my dislike meter go way up, but that’s another story for another time. What we’re here to talk about is the demise of the arcades, and why someone let this travesty occur.

If I could take a time-traveling machine back to any point in my life that has already happened, it would be to when various family members were still alive and when I was able to traverse the wild of Decker Boulevard to Aladdin’s Castle in what used to be Columbia Mall in Columbia, S.C. Today, that spot is just a memory and grease-hole food court in the chameleon Columbia Place. Some jump-off no-name restaurant that I refuse to patronize – probably a Subway – occupies the spot where my dreams of becoming a social gamer were made, where I spent far too much money and where I learned how to kill a man digitally. It was there I made the leap from kiddie to big time, from a childlike innocence of Ski-ball to simulated murder-death-kill mode with Mortal Kombat II.

I held my 11th birthday party there in 1992, and the same year attended a bubblegum blowing contest held on a Saturday afternoon. Managing to blow the equivalent of $50 in tokens on Smash TV was the highlight of my life or so I thought. It wasn’t until later in the year when I first heard the words “Finish Him!” bellowing across the room that I even noticed there were more things to do than collect tickets. Then there was Kombat. After that, there was nothing else to do but play games against sweaty, hot young men – more than enough for my pre-teen hormone-fueled mind to handle. It was a good time to be female and a teenager. There was no shortage of guys to flirt with and, despite never getting dates, I always thought of the weekends and weeknights spent crowded around MK1 and MK2 as a good time.

Then I grew up.

Once life hits you in the stomach and takes your money like a bully on the playground, you start to realize a couple of things.

First, you don’t have time to run to the arcade like you used to. There’s homework to be done, projects to take care of, significant others to pay attention to. Then, there’s jobs. And once you acquire that newfangled thing called employment, there goes any kind of free time you will ever want to have.

Second, the need to go out is replaced by the significantly improved equipment you’ve got laying around the house. Why go to the arcade and drop $5 when you have a $300 machine sitting in your living room that basically is a miniature version of that? Eventually, that machine will pay for itself and the gas money you’ve spent and the money you’ve lost getting your ass kicked by some pimply faced snot-nosed brat with the same thing in his bedroom.

Finally, I’m not getting any younger. The hand and eye coordination is nowhere near what it used to be. Thus, I’m getting old and I’m in no mood to deal with what comes with aging and losing. My expiration date came up a long time ago.

But then I say to myself, “Lyndsey, stop it. You know better and it doesn’t matter how old you are.” And then I look up, and arcades are gone. Suddenly, I remember the doors being shut across the country, the once-thriving scene of machine dens relegated to movie theaters and back-alley parlors. And there are tears in my eyes because it wasn’t supposed to come to this. It’s not supposed to end like this.

There should be a place I can take my kids and show them that mama and daddy once roamed through here, making friends and learning etiquette along the way. It’s also the place where we met, a common ground that became something special because of our shared interest. But I can’t. And I won’t because by the time they’re old enough to understand, there will be nothing left. Not a brick of memory, but just a solitary ethernet cable sitting by their crib waiting to plug in and reach out to punch someone over Xbox Live.

11

08 2010

The live-action Mortal Kombat trailer was sick! I was nearly moved to tears to see my favorite fighting game franchise rise from the ashes and blow minds like that. I am so impressed with everything: I loved the new backstories, the introduction to key characters from MK2 (my favorite in the series), the acting, the fight scenes … everything.

I have said since MK4 that the series really needed to move back to its roots completely to get back to the awesomeness that was MK’s early days and this looks like the way to go. Way to go MK team! Even if this is just a teaser for MK: Devastation (I don’t think it is, but there’s hope), I don’t care: It still looked awesome. The production values were high and the attention to character backgrounds was GREAT. I liked that they explained what made the characters who they were and I could easily identify who was who. I’m guessing it’s going to start with MK2, which is a good thing.

Kudos again, MK team! For the first time in a long time I’m excited about the direction of the series. For a longtime fan who disliked all later entries starting with MK4, this is a welcome return home.

08

06 2010

The seventh episode of the Gaming Insurrection Show finds editor-in-chief Lyndsey making her first appearance on camera. She battles Associate Editor Jamie throughout the episode in Marvel vs. Capcom for the Sega Dreamcast. Look for more episodes here or on our Youtube account.

06

12 2009

The Gaming Insurrection Show – Episode 04: Editors Talk Old School Part 1 is now available!

This week’s episode is the beginning of a two-parter on gaming memories. I sit down with former Contributing Editor Marcus Barnes to talk about our gaming past while living in our hometown of Columbia, S.C. You can watch the episode here or on our YouTube profile.

29

10 2009

Mortal Kombat! The name alone reminds me of hours spent in the local arcade. Hours of trying to destroy my opponents while trying to keep from being destroyed at the same time. The competition was tough. Everybody who ever went to an arcade knew about Mortal Kombat. Even people who didn’t play video games knew about Mortal Kombat thanks to some big wigs on Capitol Hill saying that it was too bloody and gory. Too bloody!

Mortal Kombat forced the fighting game genre, if not the video game industry as a whole to listen to what your customers want. American society wanted violence and lots of it. The more blood and more guts, the better. Americans will pay top dollar for grade A violence. Listen, would you watch a football game for four quarters knowing that they are only going to pull flags off of the other teams waist? How about buying tickets to this game? Can you see yourself having a Flag SuperBowl Party? It’s nothing against flag football. I even played flag football. I just can’t see today’s America watching flag football every Saturday and Sunday.

But I digress.

Mortal Kombat helped boost game sales in America. Even today, you can find people around the world still playing classic Mortal Kombats. I still play Ultimate MK III. In fact, I played it yesterday on my XBox360. I was in Play N Trade the other day, and a guy was asking for Mortal Kombat. People want Mortal Kombat. The world wants Mortal Kombat.

But it is no secret that Midway is having some dire finance problems. They have been losing profits for quite some time now. But while the loss of profit was mounting, Mortal Kombat was still being released. But Midway has decided that they have a plan. One plan is to sell off the Mortal Kombat property to another company. It is valued at $1,292,500 USD.

Due to its history, I am confident that MK will sell at that price, if not more. I am just curious to see who will bite.

Will it be Capcom? Capcom is no stranger to fighting games. Could there be a possible Darkstalkers vs. Mortal Kombat game in the making?

Will it be Electronic Arts? EA is always looking for the next biggest video game fad. Could this be it?

I personally would like to see Namco-Bandai get the Mortal Kombat franchise. I would enjoy seeing a Tekken vs. Mortal Kombat.